'Why am I always anxious?' Psychotherapist explains why more young Indians feel this way

From hustle culture to doom scrolling, a psychotherapist explains why anxiety is soaring among young Indians.

Something has shifted for young people in India over the last several years, and it goes beyond the usual pressures of growing up. The anxiety that a lot of young Indians are carrying today feels different in both scale and intensity from what previous generations described, and understanding why requires looking at the world they're actually navigating. In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Dr Chandni Tugnait, MD (AM), psychotherapist, life alchemist, coach, and healer, founder and director of Gateway of Healing, shared reasons behind increasing anxiety.

Why more young Indians are feeling this anxious. (Unsplash)

The pressure to have everything figured out

According to Dr Chandni, young people today are expected to have everything figured out much earlier than previous generations did, and that includes academic choices, career paths, financial stability, and some kind of visible sense of direction, often at an age when they're still working out who they even are. Social media makes this harder because everyone else's wins are right there on your screen, making what used to be a fairly private process of figuring life out feel like something you're somehow losing at.

Being available all the time sounds manageable until you realise your mind never actually gets a proper break.

Constant connectivity with no real rest

Chandni highlighted that there is a distress that comes from working hard and still feeling like you're falling behind. A lot of young Indians are navigating a gap between what they were told life would look like if they did the right things and what it actually looks like when they get there. That gap, between expectation and reality, between effort and outcome, is a significant and underacknowledged source of anxiety for this generation.

There is a distress that comes from working hard and still feeling like you're falling behind.

A culture that still struggles to talk about it

“Despite real progress in mental health awareness, anxiety is still frequently dismissed as overthinking, laziness, or a lack of gratitude in many Indian households and workplaces,” said Dr Chandni. When young people can't name what they're feeling without being told to push through it, the anxiety doesn't go away. It just hides inside you, where it tends to grow considerably larger before anyone takes it seriously.

Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.